I Summon You Here, My Love

I'm in the library trying to do my paper but I need to watch this Polish flick, Dekalog, and it keeps stopping on my computer.  Absolute bollocks.  Here's a famous bit from it.  I've been listening to a lot of Spoon lately.  Quite good.  Quite good.  Here are the two songs that have been getting a lot of play lately: 



and


I miss you.

Random Update

Hey there, hi there, ho there!  I'm currently sitting in the library getting quotations for the first of three papers I plan to write before jetting off to Italia and la France.  I've just come out of my first (and only!) final exam for this term.  It was pretty great considering I went to bed at about 4:30 and awoke at 8.  Anyway, I think it went pretty well--feelin' funky fresh.  

The picture at right is supposedly the library, but I have no idea what angle they took this from since I've never seen the library look like this.  OH WELL.  I thought it amusing while I walked up the bike ramp today that there was a sign attached to the railing reading: 

Polite Notice: Bikes will be removed.

Just in case people were offended by the sign.  Don't worry!  It's just a polite notice.  Crazy Brits always being so sensitive.  I'm upset I couldn't find about half of the books I needed, especially since it said that they were available online.  Where's my polite notice telling me they are sorry they failed and the complimentary cookie as an apology?  I'll let you know how that works out...

I can tell that I'm almost leaving not because of the date but because I've run out of jelly and see no reason to get more.  Don't worry, though, I've got a bit more Nutella left--I'll not starve.

N.E.R.D.s and Oxford

Amazingly, I'm already updating today.  (a.k.a. I'd rather do this than start studying for my final on Monday...DON'T WORRY.  I haven't lost my work ethic.  The exam is only 30 questions and my professor said the other day that she thinks it's "dead easy."  Relax!)  So, in the rest of my 
reading week, I wrote two papers for my Fathers in Film and Third Cinema and Beyond courses.  The Friday of reading week I met up with Lili and Laura (both from NDA) because Laura was visiting from Cork, Ireland while her stepmom was in town.  We went to lunch at this italian place near Leicester Square since Lili's internship is just a few blocks away.  It was good fun and a nice break from writing.

That Sunday night I went to a football (soccer, for the Americans) match for which Accent had bought us (Wash U students) tickets.  It was Fulham vs. Newcastle at the Fulham stadium, but we were seated in the Newcastle section, which was really great since they were who I had been planning on cheering for (because Kawai was living in Newcastle when I first emailed her that I was coming to London.  Sure, I make decisions with my heart.  So sue me.  Unfortunately, Newcastle lost, but it was still a great game.  I really enjoyed it and the Newcastle supporters sitting around me were really vocal, which made the game even more fun--and made me way more involved!  There were a lot of cheers, but most of the time I couldn't actually understand what was being said.  I did, however, manage to understand when everyone started singing, "The referee's a wanker!  The referee's a wanker!"  

On Tuesday (after turning in those 2 papers, but before turning in one for American Underground Cinema), Adam and I went to the N.E.R.D. concert at the Roundhouse.  I was fantastic!  I'm really pleased that I'm able to say that I went to a concert in London..  Now I just have to get some musical theatre in and I'll be totally set!  Anyway, the concert was at the Chalk Road stop in Camden, which is where Amy Winehouse is from.  I thought it was charming, but it was pretty dark--so I could be wrong.  Anyway, the venue was nice but it was kind of lame that the opener was just a D.J.  Adam and I kept talking about how easy it must be to be a D.J. since you pretty much play music for yourself everyday--a.k.a. everyone's a D.J.  Also, I think N.E.R.D. could have found a better opener (i.e. a live performer) but maybe that's just me.  I was really pleased when they started since they opened with my favorite song on their new album!

                                           

It was a really good show, and I liked how the band interacted with the audience. Pharrell kept asking the audience "What's the greatest country on this side of the world!?" It was really clever of him. But, at one point they invited girls onstage to dance during this song (which is their single for their album Seeing Sounds):
                                
So, everyone was having a crazy time and then Pharrell stopped and told the girls to not point to their friends still in the audience because they should be glad that they're on stage at all. It was a little rude, but whatever. I was also a wee disappointed at the end because they only played for an hour and a half, but theyr have 3 albums and could have totally played for longer--but perhaps that's just my opinion. It also didn't help that they didn't play "Stay Together" from their first album, which is definitely one of my favorites.

                                           

All in all, however, a glorious concert.

My paper for American Underground Cinema came out pretty well, and I actually really enjoyed writing it. It was about Kenneth Anger and his use of music in Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kommandos. I'm definitely a bigger fan of Scorpio Rising, but both were interesting.  Anger has this other film, Invocation of my Demon Brother, that really creeped me out, actually.  Mick Jagger did the sound, which is kind of interesting.  By the end of the film, however, it felt like my ears were bleeding.  I felt physical pain because of the unpleasantness of listening to it.  That actually happened during the screening for the same course when we watched Lawrence Jordan's Our Lady of the Sphere (I looked, but was unable to find it online.  Basically the problem was that it had this really pretty fairylike music but then would interrupt it with this buzz that reminded me of the most annoying sound in the world.  But I digress.  Here are the two parts of Invocation: Part 1 and Part 2.  The best part of the film is at 5:11-5:15 in Part 2.  That bit actually almost made having to sit through it worth it to me.  

That Saturday Accent took us Wash U kids to Oxford.  It was a glorious extravaganza--one that I almost missed!  I arrived at the meeting place at 9:10 and the bus had just left 5 minutes before.  Thank goodness they came back for me!  It took about an hour to get to Oxford.  Luckily, we had ANGIE with us (Angie's the same tour guide who took us through Greenwich.  She is as marvelous as ever!)  She told us a bit about the history of Oxford and universities in general.  Oxford claims to be the oldest university in the English speaking world. (Angie remarked that there are much older ones in other nations and that there is also a long-lasting argument between Cambridge and Oxford about which of them is older since Cambridge had been teaching for longer but didn't receive the official paper saying they were a university until after Oxford had.  So, they'll probably never resolve that issue..)  In any event, Oxford and Cambridge both started as monasteries because that is where the printed books were.  Great thinkers of medieval times would flock to these monasteries in order to further their study.  Often people would follow to learn from them.  Anyway, at these monastic universities, students would study four subjects, I think.  One of them was music, I'm sure.  I think it had to do with relating to astronomy or maths or something like that.  So, all these people poured into Oxford, but there wasn't much room for them to stay.  At first, the townspeople were happy to be able to charge exorbitant rates to students to let them essentially a mallet on the floor with several other men in the room.  After a time, however, resentment began to grow and fights would often break out.  So often, in fact, that there developed a system where the church bell would ring to warn those who wanted to stay away from the violence to get inside and another rang to bring those with fighting in their blood out to partake in the brawl.  A little obscene, but pretty logical if you really think about it.  Angie told us a bit about the English countryside and how much she likes to wander into churches (just like my ma!) and about her childhood and other lovely things.  Sadly, I dozed off while she spoke about picnicking and tricking sheep into eating peanut butter so they'd not beg for more food...

We alighted from the bus near Christ Church College, which 

is one of the many colleges included in Oxford.  Just across from the entrance gate is a shop dedicated to Alice in Wonderland (my favorite bit of the movie) that sells little knick knacks related to the story because Lewis Carroll used to work at Christ Church.  Apparently Alice was the chancellor's daughter and Carroll (whose real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodson) would delight her with stories--even though everyone who had lectures with him thought him the most abysmal professor.  A complete dullard.  Anyway, real life Alice (Liddell) had dark hair, and I seem to remember Angie saying that another one of the Liddell sisters had light hair.  (I also think that she died relatively young--the sister, not Alice.)  Angie said she wasn't really surprised that the Alice books were written in Oxford because you're always going through little gateways or paths and finding new places.  

If the picture above looks familiar but you can't quite place it, perhaps it's because Christ Church was where the Harry Potter films were shot.  Oxford has managed to retain its original character with beautiful architecture and cobblestoned streets.  When coupled with the hidden gates and everything, it really is like stepping into another era.  I mean, Christ's campus literally had cows chillin' on the grounds, so it's definitely an entirely different concept of a university.  For me it was really nice to see another kind of university considering how much a part of the city King's College London is--that's not to say that Oxford isn't a part of the city, but they work in completely different ways.  KCL is part of London in the sense that its streets are the streets of the city, and the university is quite literally just a building.  What I mean is that if you weren't looking for the building where I take all my courses, you wouldn't even notice it--save for the dozens of students standing outside smoking and chatting.  Oxford, on the other hand, essentially IS the city.  Everything sort of grew up around it.  But, it somehow still reminds me of Wash U in the way that there is a lot intended just for students.  The colleges have beautiful, verdant quads (I've noticed how green lawns always are in England.) with food halls and chapels just for them near to accommodation.  I would put up a picture of another of the smaller colleges, but I looked through my pictures and just realized that I only took a photo of one with a slate floor.  Silly me!

We then walked through a little of the city to get 

to this quad that had a beautiful round library that stood in front of a college that had been built for the poor.  Unlike the Naval Hospital in Greenwich, however, this college was actually used by those for whom it had been built.  It was really beautiful, and if you look closely, you can see the sundial that is in all of the colleges.  (It's in the middle at the bottom.)  Unfortunately, that college is only open to those who attend it and even Angie has never been inside.  If Angie hasn't done

 it, I don't want it.  So, the library obviously can't house all of the books that Oxford now has, especially since they've got a deal kind of like the one at Trinity in Dublin where they get a copy of every book printed in the country.  Angie said that you can go in with a request for a book and wait for them to bring it from the larger library, and it travels on a belt underground and it'll arrive in about an hour.   To our right was the church where one of the bells that would alert the townspeople in the days of yore was.  The church actually was originally a lecture hall, but as Oxford grew, they stopped that practice.  Angie really enjoyed telling us about the gargoyled along the church's trim.  Gargoyles, as I'm sure you know, were included in order to scare away the devil.  The scarier the face, the better.  (Disney took this to mean, "scary face, awesome singer"--kind of like "cold hands, warm heart."  Eh?)  Angie commented that some of the faces are so hideous, and you just know that the workers modeled them off of people in the town--perhaps even bosses who weren't paying the wages.  

We went into what used to be the main library for Oxford, I think.

  I'm actually not really sure what it was.  it was really lovely, with some very ornate ceiling carvings.  The symbols on the ceiling represent the crests of families who paid for the construction, I think.  I just realized I don't really know.  We didn't spend too much time in here and Angie didn't really say that much about it. 

 It was lovely, of course.  It was made mostly of glass and stone, which later proved problematic.  There wasn't enough support for the building and it was starting to warp outwards, but luckily Sir Christopher Wren noticed when he was constructing a building just next to it and reinforced the sides so that they would be kept upright.  Actually, the building Wren was constructing was the second one he built.  Apparently there was a contest for the design, and Wren won so he got to build his design: the Sheldonian Theatre.  The design was based on an Italian building and Wren essentially added a roof to make it his own.  Guess what else he added?  You got it!  A dome!

After we walked to an outdoor market to break for lunch.  Angie went off to eat alone again--and she had the same thing as before: a yoghurt.  You probably think I accidentally misspelled "yogurt."  If you do, you're wrong.  They spell it differently, but they also pronounce it "yaw-gert" as opposed to "yoe-gert."  Fascinating stuff, really.  So, yeah, I ate with Linh and Allison.  Allison and I got baguettes, olives, and goat cheese.  So delicious.  (Oh yeah.  I love olives now.)  It was really exciting to get the baguettes because the bakery stand we got them from was French, so I got to work those skills (again!).  Actually, a lot of the stalls at the market were French, which was a bit surprising but lovely just the same.

After lunch, we all met up again to go to Blenheim Palace, which is about 20 minutes away from Oxford.  As soon as we got onto the grounds I was completely awestruck at how beautiful it was.  Again, it was like being taken into another time.  The sprawling lawns, a stone bridge, grand lakes, all of it!  The castle itself wasn't too bad either.  We went through the gates with 24k gold on them and into the courtyard, which was really lovely.  It looked out onto the massive grounds.  I could completely understand why someone was having a wedding there that day.  Anyway, we went inside to get an official tour of the palace.  I was really sorry when I found out that Angie wouldn't be giving it to us because I'm sure she would have done a wonderful job--especially since she goes on the tour every year when Wash U/Accent sends her with the kids.  Oh well.  One of the main reasons that Blenheim Palace is such a big deal is because it is where Winston Churchill was born.  And if there's one person all the Brits love, it's Winston! Let me tell you! They love him in the same way that the Irish seem to love John F. Kennedy!  (If this doesn't make sense to you, let me give you a little story to show what I mean.  When I was in Galway--a.k.a. where JFK once went to make a speech--when Allison and I went into a church they had installed a mosaic of JFK's face next to a statue of Jesus.  That seems to be almost saint status to me...  I don't know about you.)  

Anyway, we went on a little tour of the ground floor and saw stuff from Winny's childhood and actually stood in the room where he was born.  Redickuhlous.  Churchill really had a fond place in his heart for Blenheim as it was the same place where he was born and where he got engaged.  He has mentioned being pleased with both of his decisions.  Supposedly Churchill had been courting this woman (Clementine Hozier) for ages and simply hadn't had the nerve to ask her to marry him.  Anyway, Churchill's uncle or father or something told Churchill that he needed to quit playing games with her heart and get it together that very day.  So, he sent Churchill out with Clementine, and they went to the Temple of Diana in the gardens.  I guess she was also getting fed up with waiting because she later said she saw a spider climbing to the top of a column and decided that if it reached the top before Churchill popped the question that she would return to London.  Good thing he managed to ask before and that she accepted because when the couple returned to the house, the father/uncle had assembled the staff to welcome them back with a celebration!

We then took a brief tour of the rest of the ground floor and

 heard about the history and a great deal about the family.  In addition to Winston being born there, the Spencer's have a stake in the house.  The Spencers are, of course, the family of Princess Diana.  Much earlier, however, Consuelo Vanderbilt was married to Charles Spencer-Churchill, the current owner of the home and the 9th Duke of Marlborough.  Consuelo was the only daughter of William Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt's wife, Alva, was determined to have Consuelo marry someone of noble birth.  After Alva set up the engagement without Consuelo's knowledge, Consuelo rebelled and refused to marry him.  Alva locked her in her room and allowed her only bread and water until Consuelo yielded.  After Consuelo and the Duke were married, they had two children, whom Consuelo called "the heir and a spare."  She decided that she wouldn't separate from her husband until her oldest son was 12, I believe.  (It might be 9...)  After that, Consuelo and the Duke separated and eventually their marriage was annulled because Consuelo was forced into marrying him.  (Unfortunately, I couldn't really hear most of what the tour guide said, which was fine because she mostly talked about some tapestries and a set of Polish china.  Luckily, though, Angie told us all about Consuelo in the car on the way back.  Again, Angie is ballerific--she managed to work in a love story!)  Consuelo actually died 44 years ago today.

When we got outside we walked around the gardens a bit and then stopped for some cream tea at the tea room in the palace because Angie said it was a really inexpensive place to get it--full tea at the Ritz in London is £35!  Obscene!  Well, unfortunately I misunderstood what cream tea was.  To ME, the title "cream tea" would suggest a type of tea that is creamy or has cream in it.  If I were to assume that, I would be wrong.  Cream tea= regular tea + scone with clotted cream and jam on top.  Those sneaky little english kids!  In any event, it was really delightful.  Angie says you have to be piggy about cream tea, and really slather on the jam and cream.  I did it wrong with the first half of my scone because I didn't put enough clotted cream on and they laughed at me a little.  A.k.a. Angie and I are super tight.  Watch out!  We then took the coach back to London and I returned to my halls before going to the cinema to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno with Adam, Vicky, and Laura (not one of the ones from my floor, but Laura from Floor 6).

Just Flew in From the Lin-dy Cities: Berlin

Hallo hallo.  That's my German for you.  Sorry it's taken me centuries to re-post but it's been a little ridiculous around these parts.  I left off with Vicky and I shooting off to the Dublin Airport to catch our flight to Berlin.  Many of you may remember that Vicky's German herself--good thing too!  I don't know how I would have managed to get around without someone who spoke the language.  It basically opened up waaay more places to me because we weren't limited to English-speaking locales!  Huzzah!

After we landed in Berlin, we took the bus to the U-Bahn (a.k.a. the German underground) to some other bus where we eventually got off near Alexander Platz because we were to be staying with Vicky's friend Ala who works in Berlin while taking a year off from studying dentistry.  Anyway, after alighting the bus we found this swank hotel that let us stash our bags there until we were to come back for them later.  Score.  When we had arrived at the airport we saw that there was a free walking tour of Berlin that we could take that would start at one and so we decided to do that.  We walked over to where the tour was to start, near the Brandenburger Tor (a.k.a. The Brandenburger Gate), which is where Obama gave his speech when he came to Berlin.  Looks like he'll probably be giving it there when he returns as that is the spot where newly elected presidents from all over the world generally give their Berlin speeches.  (According to Vicky, this fact caused some to be upset by Obama making an address there before he had won.  Oh well!)  We decided to walk along until we found a place we wanted to have lunch, which, as I'm sure you know, never really works.  We ended up at this "Story of Berlin" restaurant where we had lukewarm-ish not so delicious pasta, but it was all good in the hood.  Then we walked to the Starbucks (free gingerbread latté samples!  Hooray for cheapness!) from where the tour was meant to leave.

We ended up on a tour with a group of people from all over the place led by Paul.  Paul is an amazing tour guide.  Vicky and I couldn't decide if we liked him or Ed better.  Paul is an Australian from PERTH (a.k.a. home of Heath Ledger).  At the end of the tour we asked him what he did when he wasn't giving tours because these tour guides aren't paid and make their living based on tips from tour goers.  He said he didn't have another job.  But he was awesome enough to be that kind of person.  When he was younger he had studied business, then later became a chef and then moved to Berlin because he loved it there so much.  Do you love Paul as much as we did?  Okay, then we can start the tour.

First we stood in the shadow of the Brandenburger Tor (in Pariser Platz, named so because of the French occupation after WWI) while Paul pointed out 

some other sights in the square.  The god in the center on top of the Gate was gotten back after Napoleon snatchumsed it during his conquests.  They repositioned it so that the god is always looking at the French embassy--"always keeping an eye on them" as Paul awesomely said.  The American Embassy is also nearby, and it only returned to its present site, where it stood pre-WWII, somewhat recently.  In this square is also the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out the window.  Of course.  I took a picture.  It's a super classy hotel where you get your own butler.  I'm pretty sure he said it costs about €300 per night to stay there.  Anywhooo, we walked onto the main street and looked at Der Reichstag, which is where the chancellor works.  Apparently when Hitler wanted to take over they framed this guy who was always pleading guilty to crimes he didn't commit and had him run around the building while it 

was afire yelling "I did it!  I did it!"  Quesionable.  Hitler used this to show the guy in charge, who didn't actually like Hitler, that the people were uneasy and he needed to be put in control.  Anyway, it's a lovely building, and one that Vicky visited when she was in sixth or seventh grade.  I'm sure you wanted to know.  Now they have a huge dome on top where visitors can look at their government wheelin' and dealin'.  Paul said it's "to remind them who they're working for.  Except it's mostly tourists who don't make a difference anyway."  Again, Paul's glorious.  (Before he gave us this information, he gave us a really brief history of Germany, which was short partially because Germany didn't really have a whole lot going on until about 1812.  Anyway, it was founded on swampland as a fisherman village.  That's all I really remember him saying.)

We walked down the road a spell until we stopped at the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe."  The name of it is significant, since it's not just called a "Holocaust Memorial."  I talked to Vicky about how difficult it has been for Germany to get away from the image of Hitler and Nazism that has been inextricably linked to it, and I think that this title really shows the desire to distance itself while still paying for that horrific period.  The memorial has no sign anywhere, so that people who don't know wouldn't know what it was.  It's a 4.7 acre site with 2,711 concrete slabs (all the same dimensions) at various heights in the area.  It's really remarkable to stand in.  The designer never said what its meaning 

is meant to be, so that there are many different ways to interpret it.  Some say it looks like a graveyard, rows of train cars, people waiting in lines, and any number of other things.  The ambiguity lends to the memorial's profundity.  It's kind of scary to walk inside, though, because the further you go in, the colder it gets as you become completely surrounded by dark grey concrete.  There was a bit of controversy surrounding the site when a company produced a chemical paint that was put on the slabs to prevent graffiti.  Why the hullaballoo?  It was the same company that created Zyklon B, which killed millions of Jews in 

the gas chambers.  I actually think it's just a small way that they can begin to make up for the past, but that's just me.  

Then we continued through East Berlin to see where Hitler's bunker was.  You would never know that it was there because it's in the middle of a parking lot for some apartment buildings.  Paul wanted to know why no one was taking pictures of them as they were built high so as to show off to those in West Berlin as really desirable places to live: central heating and private bathrooms!  Anyway, Hitler's bunker was under the plot of dirt on the right.  Apparently people used to come looking for the spot and would knock on the doors of the apartments to ask the residents.  Getting annoyed, they erected a sign so that people wouldn't be so obnoxious.  The sign is pretty simple (like a board at a park, yadadimean?), and I would have taken a picture but the other beezies on the tour were crowding around it and I didn't have time.  Anyway, the sign is wooden and not that important looking because no one wants it to look like a shrine to Hitler.  

On we walked while Paul pointed out some buildings, and often pointed out 

the bullet holes on many of the edifices.  To just look at them is really underwhelming, until you think about what it must have been like in Germany when they were all being shot at and to just imagine living in Berlin during World War II is completely unreal.  (In the photo, also take note of the graffiti, as it's kind of all over the place in Berlin--or at least, East Berlin, which is where we spent most of our time.  I was kind of surprised at the amount of graffiti (and bullet holes, I spooooose).  We walked on until we saw this building that had some socialist artwork on the side that showed how happy socialism was supposed to make the people.  Everyone is smiling and working together and getting stuff done.  People are gleefully working in factories and singing songs about the glory of socialism.  What I liked most about this artwork is that it was set behind this water thing (it was like a long, rectangular fountain that had no font, so I don't know what to call it) that had an actual picture of what life under socialism was like for the people of Germany.  What building was this, though?  It was the side of the building that housed the Nazi party.  The building is huge and very imposing.  Apparently Tom Cruise wanted to use the actual building in his new WWII movie but he wanted to put up all the swastikas that have obviously been removed.  Clearly, people were upset.  I can't remember if he managed to convince them with a large donation or not...  I guess we'll see in the movie.  (Or, maybe you'll see as I don't see Cruise flicks on a regular basis.)

Apparently the building is now the building that houses their taxes (a.k.a. their IRS).  "So," Paul said, "it's always been a source of much fear."  Amazing.

After stopping for some coffee (a.k.a. hot chocolate for moi), we got to a long stretch of the Berlin Wall that is still standing near Checkpoint Charlie.  They

 actually erected a fence around the wall because people would often steal bits of it, as I'm sure you've seen.  (I want to say I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Whitman, bringing in a piece of the wall in this little plastic box one day.  I'm not positive, but it seems like something that's possible..)  Anyway, this was one of the three longest remaining bits of wall still intact--at least that's what I think Paul said.  They still have two rows of bricks in the pavement going through all of Berlin to remind pedestrians of where the wall stood.  (I meant to take a picture but forgot.  Sue me.)  You'll notice the round tops of the wall, and maybe wonder why they would have that instead of barbed wire or something like that.  Well, that wire could actually be used as a hook for people who tried using rope to get over the wall into West Berlin.  So, the Eastern bit sent for those round tubes from Western Germany claiming that they were going to do some irrigation maintenance, and then used the sent materials for the wall.  There is nothing to grab onto, so people were completely thwarted in their efforts to get to the other side and freedom.  After we walked past this we saw some parts of the wall that had been transformed into artwork.  I liked that people reused the source of much repression as a means of expression.  (Look at that fancy wordwork!)  Vicky told me about how her grandmother hid in the trunk of a car to get across the border to meet her fiancé.  The only reason she was able to get out of East Berlin was because they were already engaged when the wall went up.  It's amazing what people went through while the wall was up.

We walked on to the Gendarmenmarkt, which is where a lot of Huguenots escaped to when persecuted.  They formed a little enclave within Germany, and some say that you can still hear 

traces of the French-accented German in pockets of Berlin.  While we were there, Paul told us about this beer that the French made that they liked better than the German kind.  It comes in different colors and flavors.  Year round there is red (which tastes like raspberry) and green (which Paul said he could only describe as "tasting like green").  Vicky says that she's had blue in the summer that tastes like blueberry, and that that one is the best.  I guess it's a mystery to be solved.  In this square, there are two cathedrals (French and German) that flank the concert hall.  Like Trinity College in Ireland, the two cathedrals are the exact same design.  I don't know why architects back in the day were so lazy/obsessed with symmetry, but it's a little ridiculous.  

We walked on to Bebelplatz, which was constructed under the orders of Frederick the Fabulous (as he is often called because of his supposed sexual preferences).  Freddie was kind of a baller, and everyone really liked him because of all that he invested in the arts during his reign.  (Actually, he tried to escape his ties to the throne during his youth, and his father punished him by making him watch the execution of one 

of his friends.  Paul says he and his father were really close after that.  Cultural differences, people.  I'm telling you!) which is a square that has the Berlin State 

Opera, Humboldt Universitaet (a.k.a. where Einstein taught before peacing to the U.S.), and St. Hedwig's Cathedral surrounding it.  In fact, all of the platzes in Berlin have incredible buildings on all sides--it's almost like the city planners want you to get as much culture in one go as possible!  Bebelplatz was also the site of the Nazi book burnings in 1933.  So, now, in front of Humboldt they sell books every day.  In the middle of the platz there is also a monument underground that is dozens of empty bookshelves.  Next to this there is a quotation from Henreich Hein that reads: 

"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."  

("Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end.")

We then made our way over to Museum Island, which is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of museums on an island in Berlin.  That's where our tour ended.  Vicky and I walked back to get our bags from the hotel and made our way to her friend Ala's place.  After we met up with her we went out for Indian food and Vicky and I went back to the apartment hoping to see some election results (as it was November 4th) while Ala went out to a birthday party.  Unfortunately, it was too early in the states to hear anything.  But, you all know what kind of message I awoke to from the 'rents and sister!  The bombier than ever!

The next day Vicky and I got up and went to KZ (Konzentrationslager) Sachsenhausen (1936), which was the first concentration camp completed and served as the model to the rest of the camps that were built.  We went because the company that provided the free tour gave out brochures that described it as "a site not to be missed when visiting Berlin."   I can't really describe what being there was like.  The weather, gray and constantly barely drizzling seemed appropriate to the somberness of the camp.  What I really remember was walking down the long path to the camp's entrance was the gravel crunching under our shoes and the trees that lined the walk whispering in the wind.  I felt like everything else in the world had stopped and we were completely alone.  There was no other sound or sign of life.  I'm not going to put up many photos of this just because there's too much.  It's difficult to express what it's like.  It is definitely more of an emotional experience than a visual one.  Below is the front gate:

"Arbeit Mach Frei." / "Work will set you free."

When we got back to Berlin we stopped for some lunch/early dinner at an italian place where we had some apple thing that's typically German.  Then, we ended up meeting with Alex Kreis.  Some of you may remember Alex Kreis from St. Brendan School

 and the days when I was on the swim team at the LATC.  Yes, it's the one and the same.  She's studying in Berlin this semester and our fathers ran into each other at the club and, well, the rest is pretty clear.  Vicky and I went over to her area on our way to the airport and we had that Berlin beer I mentioned earlier (no blue, though!).  I had red and Vicky had green.  Green, to me, tastes like syrup and red is raspberry syrup.  Alex hadn't tried it yet, so she had some red.  Unfortunately, we had to get to catch our flight, so we were only able to meet up for about 30 minutes before blasting on the U-bahn to the airport.  Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

Posts Coming Soon:

Oxford!

Leeds/Manchester!

Geneva, Switzerland!

I really hope that everyone realized that "Just Flew in from the Lin-dy Cities" was a direct reference to Calamity Jane.  I love Doris Day (and you should too).  This song is a piece of cloud cake: "The Windy City."  I really do hope you appreciated the thought I put into the title of these two posts.  Oh, the cleverness of me!